


Mudblood And Proud Of It

by badluckvixen13 (alteringviews)



Series: The Brightest Witch Of Her Age [8]
Category: Harry Potter - J. K. Rowling
Genre: Black Hermione Granger, Legal Drama, Wizarding Politics, Wizarding World
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-04-27
Updated: 2017-04-27
Packaged: 2018-10-24 15:32:23
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 4,116
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/10744563
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/alteringviews/pseuds/badluckvixen13
Summary: The war was over and questions were still unanswered, but the least she could do was go and pretend like she was moving on.But then Viktor has a problem. Hermione has a solution and Ron...Well Ron has insecurities.





	Mudblood And Proud Of It

Shortly after the World Cup, the announcement came of magical beings rioting and demanding more rights. The Quibbler had instead published a speculation on the census data available throughout the world marking the decline in the wizarding population as related to the war and the potential that there had been more at work than simply that. 

Hermione had retrieved all of her things from the closet in her old house, met with the family that would be buying it and wired all of the proceeds from the sale to her parents’ retirement funds, letting them know that the house they’d had in England had been sold successfully and all the documentation. 

She followed her grandmother’s instructions, taking a cab into London to get out at an old wizarding building, historic on the outside. Muggles lived in it, but much like Grimmauld place, there was one flat there that simply hadn’t made it onto the official plans of the muggle building. 

Number 13 of 679 Evanston didn’t exist for those that had not known it was there. Per her grandmother’s will, it had been the flat that she’d lived in when she was sent to the muggle world to live. Her parents had loved her, but didn’t want her to deal with the harshness of the wizarding world as a squib. 

Upon her death, she’d bequeathed it to Hermione saying that it was the perfect place for a woman like her to retreat to as her grandmother had figured she would need after the war was over. She entered the place almost warily, the doorknob recognized her and she heard a myriad of locks release, like a vault at Gringotts before opening the door. It’s a rather large flat, that made her smile helplessly. The living room was primarily a library, the books on shelves and stacked on the tables. The kitchen was simple, very magical in nature, the bathroom held a large bathtub, the bedrooms large. The master bathroom was luxurious, comfortable even. It made her smile setting her luggage down. It would take her a few days to make it liveable even if she didn’t plan on living there.  This was meant to be a sanctuary like the tower at Hogwarts. So she turned on the radio and set out physically setting things right, filling the closet with some of her wizarding clothes and items. She made the shelves extend to hold all of the books on the table, transfiguring the table and chairs in the reading nook into sets of shelves and placing the extra books on them. She opened her trunk and unpacked all of the books that Viktor had collected for her over the years, shelving them and setting about cleaning the rest of the flat. She found the first room beside the reading nook was just another place to put books. Muggle and wizarding, romance novels, theories of physics… Her namesake had always had such eclectic tastes after all. 

After a few hours, she made food and continued her exploration of the flat. The drawers were full of clothes that were not Hermione’s size, but were probably what her grandmother thought she would grow to be… or wizarding, she couldn’t know for sure. In the cupboard, there were a number of boxes marked, most were marked with the symbol of the Nine muses, a note attached.

_ When you’re ready to enjoy your womanliness, I had these made for you. _

_ Love, Grams. _

She smiled and shook her head, turning her head to  vanity, a large and ornate in nature, fairies and other magical creatures carved into the wood. She drew her hand over the delicate images, before sitting on the comfortable chair in front of the mirror.  Perfume, wizarding make-up pots and the like on the table all new and unopened. She smiled, her hand shaking. 

Her grandmother had known she was going to die soon. Perhaps not by Death Eaters, but she’d known and had been prepared to leave this place to Hermione.

She shook her head and stood, leaving the room. Once she’d unpacked everything of magical nature, she carried the rest of her luggage out with her and down to the street to find a flat without the pressure of her grandmother’s memory in it. 

It was smaller, cheap, but perfect for her to look over her employment options and decide to apply to the Ministry of Magic’s library. The offer of an interview came faster than she expected.

When the woman asked her in the interview, why she went back to get her N.E.W.T.s, Hermione wondered for a moment if it was out of morbid curiosity or something that would make or break her application to work in the Ministry of Magic’s Library when everyone expected her to be a little more involved in the spotlight like Ron and Harry had become playing for the Chudley Cannons. They expected her to be an auror or a politician she was sure. She wondered if it really mattered at all.

_ Why? _

It always seemed to come back to the  _ why _ of anything she did. Why would she willingly take extra time studying at Hogwarts when most things they could teach her she’d already taught herself years ago? Why go back when Ron and Harry hadn’t bothered? When none of the frontline had gone back? When it wasn’t necessary?

She guessed that was the funny thing about breaking the rules for so long--people expected it of you. 

She thinks back to standing in her living room, casting that memory spell over her parents, watching over them until they packed up and moved to Australia as Monica and Wendell Wilkins. Telling them that she was a realtor and would help them manage the process of selling the house  The way she’d gotten rid of all the photographs in the house of her, erased herself and became just a shadow in the Muggle World racing a clock she couldn’t read to beat the end of the Muggle World, and perhaps the Wizarding World, as she knew it. She'd killed her parents in the Muggle world., liquidated their assets and sent them elsewhere to be different people but ultimately to live without the probability of death ao high over their heads. 

She'd told Angelo that she needed time and maybe one day she'd be back. He hugged her tight and told her to do whatever she had to do, the ice would be there when she was ready.

She remembered thinking then how easy it was to do it. How cold she felt on the inside as she erased every fond memory in their heads of her and replaced them with new lives. How she’d changed their documentation, their records, how she’d made tiny changes in time to give them a life firmly in the Muggle World where they belonged whether she made it out alive or not.

She thought back to being petrified in the hospital wing, banging on the light behind her eyes to be heard, praying that her notes would lead the two bumbling boys to answers and steer them clear of death. She remembered Dumbledore coming to her and giving her the chance for apprenticeships that would turn out to be incredibly useful in the end. 

So many things she thought of when they asked that question, but for the librarian she gave a different answer. 

“To not go, to not graduate, would have been to acknowledge that I couldn’t because of what happened. To lose, and we didn’t fight all those years to lose.”

The woman swallowed and nodded, taking her answer and offering her the position easily. She gave her a tour, explained her duties before letting her go. 

“Get your Daily Prophet! Mass murdering magical creature sentenced to Azkaban! Magical creature law under revision!”

She turned, moving to take a paper and swallow seeing Cyrus’s face, panicked, eyes a light as they’d put a muzzle on him, a tag around his neck and chains. He was screaming fighting against his captors in the photo. She swallowed turning to apparate to the Burrow where the Weasley family was pouring over the news. 

“Well at least they’ve made progress in cleaning up the Ministry,” Molly said, fussing over a pot. “What kind of Magical creature is he?”

Arthur looked at the photo strangely, “I would have never guessed… a magical creature carrying around a wand…I thought he was a normal wizard wirh strange eyes… he used to bring me Muggle things.”

“He probably took them from his victims.”

She gawked at them, but didn’t spare a moment to try and reason with them before borrowing their fireplace.

“Hermione!” Ron called as she pulled out a vial of floo powder out, poured some in her hand and called out the place she knew she would find them. SHe stepped out into the familiar Grecian palace and heard voices.

“Viktor! Viktor you have to calm down!” She moved towards them, seeing the sisters, all nine of them yelling at Viktor. Petya and Antonio were holding his broom hostage as Aleksandr and a few other tried to subdue him. 

“Viktor!”

He wasn’t listening and Hermione swallowed, “Petrificus Totalus.”

Viktor froze and the men let him go, panting from struggling with him as they all looked at her, “Hermione… how did you…”

“Floo,” she said and lifted the paper. “I came as soon as I heard.”

Petya swallowed, shrinking Viktor’s broom and placing it in his cloak pocket, “He should be grounded for a while.”

The sisters nodded as Hermione went to Viktor and undid the spell. He was flushed with rage, his eyes burning. She only pulled him into her arms. 

“Is… not  _ fair _ . Cyrus innocent.”

“I know,” she said. “But storming up there will not help him. Finding who actually did it will.”

Viktor shook his head, “Ministry use him. Kill them… make him scapegoat. Can’t help him…”

“We can,” she said with a sigh. “We will, just… calm down, okay?”

Viktor nodded, shaking. It takes a moment to get him calm enough to bring him inside. They pass around warm drinks and Hermione let out a breath and asked them to tell her from the beginning what happened. She takes notes, asks questions and when she has enough to start, she gets the name of Cyrus’s defense and makes it a point to go to Kingsley Shacklebolt. He’s bitter about losing the election at the last minute, but he listens to her theory. He says he has his reservations against Cyrus, having never been able to really figure him out, but no one deserved to be watched over Dementors...especially when you were innocent. On her lunch breaks for three months, she goes to the Auror office to speak with the people that are running the case. She takes her fifteen minute breaks to scour the Ministry’s library for answers and pen letters to the Ministries involved in Cyrus’s case.

She and Ron go on dates as often as they can between his new position and Hermione’s rush to help Cyrus. Whether because, as usual he has nothing to talk with her about and much rather prefers to talk at her, she isn't sure, but she leaves them all without the slightest desire to schedule another one...She does though and she had yet to figure out why...she'd said inevitable but that still didn't feel right. Not with the way he looked at her, a sort of haughty and conspiratorial look. The way people came up to them and wanted autographs, the way he relished the attention when all Hermione wanted was to disappear into old news. How he'd loved it when her Order of Merlin had been announced, wanting her to wear it out. Hermione hadn't even opened the box it came in.

“Hermione?” Ron greeted coming towards her, “Are you… ready?”

Hermione smiled, “As soon as I drop this off.”

Ron grinned, but then his name was called and he rushed off greeting the person. She isn’t surprised, Ron was always shaking hands with his fans, pretending to give advice to the Aurors when in reality he was barely serviceable at spell work. Nor is she surprised when the forensic analyst groans at her entrance. 

“Can’t you leave this alone? It’s just a creature.”

Hermione leveled her with a glare, “Cyrus Rasun is a friend of mine. Did you run the test I asked you to?”

She grumbled moving towards where she’d shoved the results. She gave them to Hermione who frowned.

“It’s… dragon fire.”

“Yeah,” she said crossing her arms. “So?”

She looked at the woman, “It’s dragonfire, who has a dragon around on a leash?”

She rolled her eyes, “No one.”

“So what does that tell you? Sr. Analyst?” Hermione asked patiently, giving her a look that Severus would be proud of.

“That they stumbled into a dragon’s cave.”

Hermione shook her head, taking note of the results and sending a letter to Cyrus’s defense in the Bulgarian Ministry. The woman arrived all of three days later to look over the analyst’s results and the rest of the information from the case before looking at Hermione. 

“You mean?”

Hermione nodded, “I’ve called in a favor to the best magical being expert in the world. Do you have time to meet with him?”

She nodded, following Hermione to the appointed room. The man looked up, old with his glasses, a great knowledge between his ears. 

“Professor Locken,” Hermione greeted. “Thank you for coming.”

“Of course, Miss Granger, it is not every day a man of my age is called upon to help save a man’s life--by one of your standing no less.”

Hermione smiled and introduced them, she had all of thirty minutes left on her lunchbreak, but she asked the professor to explain to Cyrus’s defense what he believed to be the case. 

“From what Miss Granger has told me of the incident, it would seem to me that there were few possibilities.”

For one, the attack was not one of a dragon as the location where they were found, the way they were found were not conducive with dragon attacks. The explanation of dragon fire could have been the fault of an artifact used to contain it and study it. 

“Such things are not uncommon in that area of the world,” he explained. “Especially with dragon reserves… most of which are facing quite an interesting issue.”

“Which would be?”

“Dragons are going missing,” he said. “Not flying away, nor any trace of being smuggled, but  _ gone _ en masse.”

Hermione swallowed, taking notes of the meeting. 

“From the analysis, Miss Granger provided, my colleagues at the Romanian Dragon preserve have concluded that it was fire from a Hungarian Horntail contained in a Seros, very rare artifact originating from China. Dragon fire can not harm dragons.”

“Cyrus is very clearly not a dragon,” the woman said shaking her head. 

“No, but he is quite possible a descendant of one.”

The woman looked at him incredulously as he pulled out a book and flipped the page to his own handwritten notes. 

“It is not the same as let’s say a descendant of a Veela. These people were once worshipped as gods, the children of Tiamat and Kur.”

“Tiamat…” the woman mulled over. 

“Ancient Mesopotamian goddess of the ocean, Kur was considered the first dragon. She and her husband APsu were slain by their children, Kur was a part of her retinue. Kur’s exact nature is unknown but dragon, the underworld, the void space between the sea and the earth...The killing of Kur caused the flooding of the earth, so says some of the myths.”

“What does this have to do with Cyrus?”

“All dragons are descendant of Kur,” Hermione said. “Who was loyal to Tiamat. No dragon would attack a son of Tiamat, a draconusmortis, as the english have called them for their relationship with void spaces and dragons. Much like Goblins they've had their disagreement with the Ministries of Magic.”

They didn't agree with wizards poaching dragons or any magical creatures the way they did. It had been a full on civil protest of them rallying dragons to defend themselves, rallying the entire magical creature kingdom to rebel against the hierarchy established by wizards. From what she'd read, it wasn't violent, but at the end of it them and a very large population of dragons from all over the world had vanished and hadn't been seen since leaving only the few who'd been eggs at the time in wizarding care and their descendants. Most books wrote them, and the dragons that went missing completely, as extinct.

“So what does that have to do with the death of the others?” She asked. 

Hermione smiled, “There were only four Seros ever made. One given to each corner of the world, This is the East Seros entrusted to the dragon fighters turned mercenaries and death eaters.”

Her jaw dropped, “How… do I prove all of this? A witness? Anything?”

“Cyrus’s memories,” Hermione said simply. “And the resurrection stone.”

“First legends, now you’re talking fables.”

Hermione dug into her pocket and pulled out the stone that hovered and spun above her palm. Her eyes widened. 

“How… did you get that?”

She smiled, “I have a few connections.”

In truth, the centaurs had found it and gave it to her, telling her that such a powerful object should not be lost in the Dark Forest. Though it could not be destroyed as easily as the elder wand, it could in fact be protected.

“Will you testify to this?” The woman asked looking at the Professor. 

“Of course.”

“And you?”

“Of course.”

She nodded and gathered up her own notes, “I’ll start drafting the appeal.”

Hermione nodded, stowing it back in her pocket and following the woman out. When she arrived back to her desk, a letter from Viktor awaited her. 

Ron entered while she was reading the letter, a small smile on her face. He looked at her. 

“Who’s it from?”

She looked up at Ron and stood, “Viktor. Ready for lunch?”

He stepped back, “Actually… I’ve got something to do. Maybe some other time.”

She frowned asking him to come back, but he didn’t heed her, leaving her office without a word. She sat back down wondering what the hell had gotten under his skin so badly before shaking her head and finishing the letter with laugh. Apparently, Nicholai was one of the most active five year olds ever, insisting to spend his time outside with Viktor flying, running with Aleksandr and the others whenever they came to visit the Krum Manor.

_ Is better than trying to eat something off the floor again, _ he wrote wryly.  _ Glad to be better  brother to him than Kamen and others were to me. _

She doubted that Viktor could be anything but loving to the little bundle of wonder who’d taken a liking to him from the moment they met. She’s glad to hear him settled, still fighting with the Bulgarian Ministry to appeal Cyrus’s sentence with everyone else pulling as many strings as they could. 

It hadn’t been until Cyrus’s defense had mentioned Hermione and Professor Locken as witnesses for the appeal that it had been granted… and that was month five and a half into Cyrus’s sentence.

On the day of the appeal, two weeks after it had been granted, Hermione stood in the middle of the trial room after giving her and Professor Locken’s professional opinions. Several wandmakers had come in to dispel any thoughts about Cyrus’s “wand” being a true wand that would apply to the wand ban.

“It isn’t a wand,” they said with shakes of their head. “Not by wizarding standards. A focusing tool yes, but it is not a wand.”

She watched the court recorder take everything down as she conjured the spirits of Cyrus’s twelve team members who’d been killed. Cyrus had protected the woman of the group, throwing himself in front of her and trying to shield them, but his strength had not been enough. They had been outnumbered, all of them disarmed and backed into a corner before the eros had been opened and the heat had come gushing out. The people who attacked them had given no names, no reasoning.

“ _ He held up his hands, _ ” she said. “Cyrus was always very good with wandless, nonverbal spells, especially protective ones, but it wasn’t enough.”

Before they’d departed, they’d asked the court to tell Cyrus of what happened, the truth while glaring at the Minister of Magic who seemed to pale at the ghosts.

“And remember that all blood debts will be repaid in kind.”

They vanished then and they were excused so the Wizengamot could deliberate. 

Viktor hugged her tightly, thanking her profusely for her help. 

When they announced that they would clear Cyrus’s name and get him out of Azkaban, Viktor had said that he would go and along with him, and several Aurors would go to collect him. In the proceedings, Kingsley had made a deal with the Minister to remove the Dementor presence from Azkaban as to curtail any escapes due to the Dementors unsteady allegiance.

Hermione swallowed, watching them fly off towards the prison and let out a sigh, a tiny corner of her soul stitching itself back into place at the thought that while policy had condemned him, it had been the knowledge, logic, and the threat of several rebellions, the loss of face, that had gotten him out and would keep him out of any sort of danger for quite sometime. 

After all, how could the Ministry explain knowing what he was because they monitored the place where his people were thought to reside, yet still putting him in jail as anything other than prejudice? A prejudice that was not supposed to exist in the new world. Prejudice that Reever Darthmouth had firmly stood against, seeking to “look towards the future” and the preservation of wizarding kind. 

Reever glared at Hermione as she smiled and exited. 

Politicians, wizarding or muggle, were always caught in their own lies eventually, yet there was something pricking the back of her neck, an instinct that she’d begun to associate with oncoming danger. Interesting that it would see fit to return when she’d been through so much, but not surprising. 

This new Minister would be trouble, she knew. 

*

Reever looked around the heads of each country’s Ministry of Magic. He’d sent the documents to each of them upon discovery, urging them to research the trends the scholar had pointed out in his initial publication.  That had been a month ago, before he’d been forced to revoke Cyrus’s sentence and the ministry had become responsible for his recovery less the magical creatures, who were already upset with the British Ministry of Magic, start a full rebellion. 

They’d convened to make a decision on how to proceed forward. 

“Something must be done,” he said. “In the wake of this catastrophe, the people are panicked and wary of the Ministries. We need to gain their trusts again, we need a diversion.”

“What do you suggest?” The Russian Head of Magic asked. 

Reever nodded for them to be given the file he’d prepared and began to explain. 

“I’ve conversed with the last of the sacred twenty-eight’s head of the families. With the exception of a few, most are on board provided we allow them freedom to chose and give the more powerful families leverage. I have a feeling that the pureblood families of your countries will feel the same.”

“And what happens when you have mudbloods who don’t comply?”

“They’re exiled.”

A murmur echoed through the group, “That is a dangerous game.”

“It won’t be,” he said assuredly. “Tolerance, moving forward, ensuring that another Voldemort Crisis doesn’t happen through international cooperation and societal reformation is something that can be played to our advantage.”

The listened to him, the rhetoric that was meant to add to this. For the most part, they said they would think about it, speak with their own pureblood families to see if it was viable, and return with an answer in a few months. 

He understood, but as they left he knew that if he got a majority to agree, which he would, the rest would agree in order to keep up the front of international cooperation, unity, and dedication to the future. Every Ministry had been harmed by the last war and would need this boost. 

He smirked thinking of Hermione’s smile as she left the room. The little girl didn’t know anything about politics, but she would be important in the days ahead.

 


End file.
